All-Star
by Elle Seren
Summary: Artemis Crock has left behind her life of crime, but it turns out that leaving isn't as easy as just walking away. When someone at her new school recognizes her, she realizes that she's going to have to take drastic measures if she wants to keep her past a secret. And for that, she's going to need a hacker. Spitfire, CheshRoy/RedCat, AU.
1. Vibes

**A/N: Hello! I'd like to begin this story by saying how much I love this fandom and that I hope the others that are already a part of it will accept my humble contribution. I've already written one Spitfire story, but this is my first multi-chapter one. I hope you all enjoy it or are at least able to give me some constructive criticism! With that said, please do enjoy and look for updates once a week from here on out. This is just a super short intro chapter :)**

**Disclaimer: Young Justice does not belong to me; I don't want responsibility for all those hiatus'!**

It started out as a feeling. Nothing concrete, no more than an anxious buzz in his class. A couple strange glances at most.

_So soon?_

She'd only been at Gotham Academy for three weeks.

At first she thought it was because she was new, because her uniform was a hand-me-down, hell, she was even willing to believe it was because he was attracted to her.

These were just excuses to make herself feel better.

She hadn't grown up in the dirty corner of a crime riddled slum to overlook her gut instinct. And her gut instinct knew something was wrong.

The good news was, he was the only one that was giving off vibes.

The bad news was, he was her science teacher.

It was a lot harder to scare off and/or bribe a teacher into leaving the past alone than it would be a fellow student. In her third block class with Mr. Harper, she constantly felt on edge.

It wasn't that he was specifically _doing_ anything –in fact, it was sort of the opposite. It was his lack of action that was bothering her.

If he knew her, or Jade, or God forbid, was on her father's payroll, she would have thought he'd have approached her by now. And yet, for all the strange looks, and weird vibes…nothing.

He spoke to her no more than he did any other student. She sat quietly in the back, he taught quietly from the front. She didn't raise her hand and he didn't call on her. It would have been a totally normal class if it weren't for those _looks._

It was a look that spoke of an uncomfortable, vague recognition. Like they had met in passing before. And with a background like Artemis', any sort of recognition was a bad thing.

It could have gone on like that all year. A 'feeling' wasn't enough to prompt Artemis to action. It would take more than gut instinct to even consider jeopardizing her position here.

She had endured too much to go back to that life now.

When her mother had returned from her stint in Starling City's finest prison, she hadn't returned the same person.

For one, she was now crippled, sustaining an injury during her prison sentence that forever took her ability to walk from her. She claimed the injury woke her up to her responsibility to provide a good life for her two daughters.

Upon returning she promptly kicked her low-life husband out, spat on his threats of making her regret it, and began making plans to start a new better life.

Jade had been disgusted with the offer, refusing to believe in the pretty, painted picture Paula wanted to make of their bitter, broken family.

Artemis, on the other hand, leapt at the opportunity to leave that life behind.

That wasn't to say her father and Jade hadn't tried to stop her, but it was to no avail. Artemis was as fierce as her mother and determined as her father. Nothing was going to stand in her way.

So no, she would never have done anything to jeopardize this new life of hers unless she had good reason, especially after receiving the generous Wayne Scholarship to attend Gotham Academy.

She would have been willing to ignore Mr. Harper and all his strange looks…if it weren't for his slip up.

He was handing back tests, calling students up one by one. She heard her number called, and quietly approached his desk.

As he handled over the paper, his normally tight-lipped stern expression softened and he said, "Good job Ja –Artemis. Uh, good job. It was a great paper."

He tried to play it off like he hadn't slipped up, but the damage was done. Artemis felt cold dread seeping through her.

He'd been about to call her _Jade. _

Sure, he didn't complete the sentence, but if he had, there wasn't a doubt in her mind where it was going. Those strange looks. The uncomfortable recognition. It all made sense now.

_Jade. He knew Jade._

And that meant he knew who Artemis was, too.

For the first time, Artemis wished Jade had succeeded in her hell bent attempts to stop her from attending Gotham Academy.

Forcing herself to breathe again, she took the paper robotically and returned to her desk, ignoring his concerned expression. It wasn't _him_ that concerned her; it was what he could do with the information.

Blackmail, she could handle. A quick heart-to-heart after class, she could handle. But he hadn't done either of those things.

He hadn't visibly done anything, which meant if he had taken any action upon cracking her fake ID, it had been quite delayed…

Oh God. What would any uncertain, well-meaning teacher do upon finding out one of their students was an ex-con with a fake ID?

File a report, of course.

Great. An official investigation was the last thing she needed. No, what she needed was to find that report and…_un_-report it.

And for that she was going to need a hacker.

**A/N: So what do you think? Please let me know, I really enjoy constructive criticism! The next chapter will be longer, I promise, this was just an intro…see you all next week!**


	2. Robin

**A/N: Wow the response to this story was great! You guys are wonderful, I really appreciate the support ;D I'm sure this chapter will raise more questions than answers, but I promise I won't keep you in the dark for too long!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice. I would love for it to star airing again, though!**

Finding a hacker shouldn't be too hard, she thought.

There were lots of brilliant, busy minds around here, she thought.

She thought wrong.

Finding someone capable and wiling to hack the Gotham Academy system was like mixing oil with water. It just wasn't happening.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. Technically she had found a 'person' or at least the name of the person. In fact, it was the only hacker name that seemed to exist in the minds of these Gotham students.

_Robin._

As stuck up and conceited as the students here could be, they weren't easy to crack. Sure, some were willing enough to mention this 'Robin's' existence, but beyond that? Nada.

Artemis was practiced in the art of leaning and leveraging, but she'd rather not resort to that. She wanted to be as casual as possible.

The problem with that was that these kids were afraid to even mention Robin and those who did only seemed to deal in rumours.

A conversation about grades. Stay casual. Try to get that anxious girl in biology to tell her where you'd go if you needed a mark increased on the down low.

"Y-you mean like by hacking the grade system? I…I wouldn't know that. Why would I? I wouldn't be involved with _him_…I mean, I don't know a him. I don't know anything about that sort of thing at all. Sorry."

A conversation after track practice, letting the boys drool over her scantily clad, glistening form.

"Robin? Keh, that guys a myth. Just some hero for nerds to dream about swooping in to jack up their grades."

"I heard he only does it if you can prove that you deserved a better grade. Like that time when Mr. Frost flunked that girl because she wouldn't" –

"Dude. You make him sounds like he's some sort of _hero._ He's a vigilante at best. I heard he's just a disgruntled ex-employee of Wayne Industries. Probably one of the dope-selling janitors."

"That would explain why he also helps wipe juvi-records and drug busts if you pay him enough. Wouldn't be good for business otherwise."

"No way man, that's not what he does. He only does grades."

"But I thought you told me that after the cops crashed your party" –

"_Dude._ Shut up. He _only_ does grades. You got that?"

Over by the lockers after home-room.

"I heard he's a first-year student! Some sort of boy genius!"

"No way, he's one of the hunky seniors!"

"Well, obviously he's hot. You can't be a hero and be _ugly._"

Behind the bleachers.

"The first rule about dealing with Robin is don't talk about Robin. It's better if you don't even think about him, cause I'm pretty sure the dude can read minds."

Up on the hill, pretending to look for a smoke.

"Juvenile records? Maybe. All I know is that the teachers can't catch him. Some people think he _is _a teacher. That's bull, though. He's too cool for that. Not…not that _I _know anything about him. I don't associate myself with _that_ sort of person."

Back in class again. She'd come full circle. Everything from nervous denial to squirrely descriptions of his looks or work led Artemis to believe these rich kids knew more about Robin than they'd care to admit.

It was time to take more drastic measures.

"Whoa, what the hell, blonde?" The gaunt-looking boy whined when she slammed him into the wall, twisting his arm precariously behind his back.

When she'd lured him out of class, he probably thought he was about to score. This just wasn't his lucky day.

That being said, she had cut it pretty close, leaving herself just a minute to the bell. This would have to be fast.

It was a good thing it was easier to find out about the school's local drug dealer than this mysteriously hacker.

"I know what you do, Cameron. I know all about your e_xtracurricular activities."_

"Look, if you're looking for some product, I" –

"That's not it. I just find it suspicious that someone as dumb as you has gone so long without marking up your record. I'd think you'd have been kicked out of a school like this by now."

"…I don't know what you're talking about."

A subtle increase in pressure on his arm. He tensed against the pain which was about as much as he could do with his face shoved into the brick wall.

"Who is Robin? How can I find him?"

"I told you, I don't" –

A harder twist. Enough to make him squeal in pain like the pig he was.

"_Who –is –Robin._ I'm not _asking_ anymore."

"Okay, Okay! I'll tell you! His name is" –

Whatever Cameron was about to say was cut off by an echoing cackle of pleasure, swiftly followed by the shrilling of the school bell, singling the end of the period.

Artemis whipped around, releasing Cameron without a second thought.

That laugh. It was way too perfectly timed, stopping Cameron from speaking and wasting the last few seconds until the bell.

Her gaze was immediately drawn to the end of the hallway by the sound of squeaking shoes. There was a redheaded guy leaning casually against the wall, typing away on his phone.

Right when her narrowed gaze set on him, he glanced up, a massive grin spreading across his face, visible even from down the hallway.

Just as the doors burst open, releasing throngs of restless students into the hall, her phone buzzed. It was a cheap, for-emergencies-only flip-phone. No one had this number except her mother.

Panic blossomed in her chest. Had her mother fallen from her chair? Had her father found them? She snapped it open with fumbling fingers, anxiously scanning the text.

Robin: OTHER WAY.

Her head snapped up, looking desperately –but ginger was long gone. Big surprise.

Spinning in the other direction, she searched for the redhead's partner at the other end of the hall, only to realize the brilliance in "Robin's" plan.

There were students _everywhere._

But she wasn't going to be so easily dissuaded. Her sharp eyes glanced quickly from face to face rapidly analyzing and rejecting faces.

Too dumb. Too loud. Too depressed. None of these were right.

By the time her desperate eyes found the end of the hall she'd rejected every pimply faced, straight-laced kid in front of her.

Had the text been a rouse? Was it really the redhead who –wait.

The tip of a shiny toed loafer poking out from around the corner.

She set off, weaving in and out of the churning mass of eager students.

100 meters to go. Was every student in Gotham Academy in this hallway?

50 meters.

The loafer disappeared.

She picked up the pace, going from impatient girl to charging football player. She was no longer dodging people; it was up to them to try dodging her.

She belted round the corner grinding to a halt. This hallway was just as busy, and just as full of straight-laced nobodies.

She let out a breath of disappointment, allowing her body to relax. He was gone. She'd blown her chance.

She turned around slowly –only to come face to face with a boy.

She was surprised for two seconds –and then she saw his grin and knew it was him.

She didn't have to look at his shiny loafers or well pressed uniform. The slicked back hair and expensive clothes were just a costume to help him fly under the radar.

That playful grin said it all and set him apart from the other neat little dolls at this school. He was playing this game, and he was enjoying it for the sake of the game.

"You're pretty determined when you want something, Ms. Crock," he said, hands slotted casually in his suit pockets. His blue eyes seemed to shine delightedly up at her.

"I haven't even gotten started," she assured him, glowering down at the little weasel. "You haven't exactly made it easy."

"Me? What makes you think _I _had anything to do with this? My name isn't Robin. I'm Dick Grayson, and even if I _wasn't _Dick Grayson, I still wouldn't be one to tell anyone to tell or not tell anyone anything," he said, raising one fine eyebrow at her.

His talent for disarming the English language was obviously a distraction method.

"I'm sure you tried really hard to stop the rumours from spreading," she replied dryly.

"Well, perhaps I don't…discourage the rumours. And maybe I did enjoy watching you run around a little bit," Dick admitted, cheeky expression not showing a shred of remorse.

"So Robin's been watching over my witch-hunt? Why choose to do the big reveal now?" Artemis asked sharply.

"Robin's a strange guy. If I had to guess, I'd say he saw you were getting desperate. I'd say you managed to catch his interest with your…situation," he told her.

She frowned at his disassociation with the name Robin, but knew it wasn't worth pursuing. This kid was way too smart to be that obvious.

"What exactly do you know about my situation?" She asked, again feeling a wave of dread come over her.

This Dick Grayson wasn't threatening or dangerous on first glance, but there was a wicked intelligence behind his perfect façade.

She wasn't entirely certain she was safer with him knowing her background than she was with Mr. Harper knowing.

"Nothing at all, of course," Dick said in a questioning voice, as though he couldn't imagine a reason why he would know such information. "It is Robin's philosophy to let his customers provide only what information they desire. It provides a better challenge, and builds a certain…trust. We wouldn't want to make anyone uncomfortable."

"We?" Artemis questioned, head spinning.

It was no wonder "Robin" was such a hard individual to pin-point.

He was a person, a group, a hero figure and a dangerous hacker all in one. Catching the one, true Robin was like trying to catch smoke.

"Robin has many associates." That devilish grin had returned.

"So is he or one of his _associates _willing to help me with my situation?" She asked through gritted teeth, fed up with this game of cloak and dagger.

"Would I be here if he wasn't?"

"I suppose not. So how does this work?" She asked, glancing around uncomfortably at the students swarming around her. "Do we cut class right now, or…?"

"Be patient," Dick admonished, "Robin would never be so rash. He will get in contact with you after he's talked to one of his associates."

"And how does he plan to do that?" She questioned suspiciously.

There was a scuffle at the end of the hall, and Artemis glanced over to see the same redheaded boy from before looking anxious and apologetic as he all but danced in fear around the bigger, dark skinned senior who was currently wearing gingers coffee all over his superman t-shirt.

How exactly he managed to acquire the coffee since she last saw him also tugged at her mind irritably.

She heard a mocking cackle from behind her, and felt her stomach drop to her toes. Spinning round, she searched desperately for the mysterious boy but all she got was thin air and fading laughter in the crowds of students all around her.

Her phone buzzed, and she pulled it out slowly, reading the text with trepidation.

ROBIN: UNTIL LATER, MS. CROCK

She put down the phone, letting out a breath of exasperation. Out of necessity, she looked back to where the redheaded clutz had been 30 seconds ago.

Unsurprisingly, he was long gone leaving the guy with coffee all over him bewildered and enraged, but all the same, still victimless.

"You and me both buddy," Artemis muttered, "You and me both."

**A/N: So I threw in a bunch of characters from the show, just to do little cameos…bonus points if you can name them all! But really, I'd love to know what you guys think and what you think is going on with this whole "Robin" operation. See you next week! ;)**


	3. Hipster Hacker

**A/N: Okay this chapter is where the bulk of the story is! And LOTS of Spitfire so don't worry…I hope you all like it! Also, it was a lot of fun reading people's guesses for who was in the last chapter, but alas, nobody QUITE got all of them...so here's the list: Dick is Dick Grayson, 'the red head' is Wally, Mr. Harper, is Roy Harper, Cameron is Icicle Jr, Mr. Frost is Cameron's rather/Frost, and that black guy in the superman shirt is Mal Duncan! Don't worry, there's more cameos this episode -but they're a bit more obvious! Enjoy the chapter!**

**Disclaimer: Anything you recognize does not belong to me.**

ROBIN: LAB235. 15:30

That was it. Artemis had been waiting all through fourth and fifth block .She was beginning to doubt the capability of Robin's 'associate' when she got the text.

It was straightforward enough. The course code was obviously for one of the lower level labs and the other number was the time of the meet.

After calling her mother from a payphone to let her know she'd be late home (believe it or not, the cellphone was only supposed to be for emergencies) she set off for the basement.

The door to the lab swung open with a creak and she wondered if this was a good idea. Then she remembered how much worse it would be if Mr. Harper had filed a report explaining her relationship to Jade.

How was she supposed to know if she was supposed to take permanent actions or not if she couldn't even figure out if he'd filed a report?

Suddenly, this seemed like the best idea ever.

Stepping inside the lab, she glanced around suspiciously. There were a couple people already inside.

There was a bubbly brown haired girl, the same one from biology who had claimed to know nothing about padding your marks through Robin's hacking skills. There was also a dark skinned blond haired fellow, a boy with his back to her with a black tuque on, and a broad shouldered, black haired male glaring furiously at his screen like he might shoot lasers from his eyes if he glared hard enough at it.

For a brief moment she wasn't sure what to do. There was no way of telling which one was Robin's associate.

How would he expect her to know which it was? She hadn't even seen most of the people in this room before.

And that was when she realized. She had seen one of the unknown males before, relatively recently.

Knowing how quickly Robin's little 'games' could change; she bounded across the room the second she came to that realization.

Crossing the room in five quick steps, she ripped the tuque form the 'unknown' boy's head, revealing a shock of red hair.

"_You,_" she growled, "Somehow I just knew it was going to be you."

Looking up at her with an adorable, enthusiastic grin and innocent green eyes from behind large black glasses frames, he asked, "Looking for me, beautiful?"

She had a retort ready to snap back on the tip of her tongue, but was cut off by the sound of a chair screeching across the floor.

The angry looking boy had stood abruptly, gesturing to the bubbly girl from across the room, who no longer even remotely resembled the nervous mess she had pretended to be the last time Artemis saw her.

It was like she was a whole different person.

The girl crossed the room without hesitation, like it had been a physical task to stay so far away from the angry looking boy for such a long period of time. From the way her arms wrapped around his waist and his face softened minutely, Artemis gathered they were a thing.

Neither said anything, but both stared at ginger. It was kind of creepy, almost like they all knew each other so well that they didn't even have to speak, they just knew what each other were thinking.

After a moment of silence, ginger made a face and said, "Oh fine, stop rubbing it in. Go on your little date, see if I care. Not like you guys are off having fun while I'm stuck here doing" –

They were out the door before he could even finish his sentence. He gave a disgruntled noise, throwing up his hands in frustration and sagging in his chair like a petulant five year old.

The dark skinned boy stood and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder for a moment before walking out of the room as well, never even saying a word.

Artemis watched him go, even more confused than when this whole debacle started.

"Should I ask, or just assume that's a hipster thing?" She asked dryly, flicking the side of his oversize glasses and dropping the tuque in his lap as she moved to stand at his shoulder.

"Hey now, don't judge me. This is my professional attire," he said in his proudest voice, as he gestured to the black hat, and Flash t-shirt he had donned.

It wasn't what he had been wearing earlier, but that was as much as she could say as far as 'professional' went.

"What, you mean as a…_associate _of Robin?" Artemis jabbed and ginger grinned at the mention of his 'employer'.

"That's right I am. I'll have you know you have the second fastest hacker in Gotham at your service. They call me Kid Flash," he told her, accenting his grin with a wiggle of his fingers.

Curiously, they were clad in black, fingerless gloves. It seemed like too functional of a choice to be part of the hipster persona he was putting up.

Instead of asking, though, she scoffed and said, "Really? Black gloves and everything? This isn't exactly robbing a bank, _Kid._ From what I hear, most of what you people do is bump grades for whiny rich kids. Not really high end stuff."

"Whoa, whoa, back up blonde. Robin may be a better hacker than me, but that's because he's _Robin._ My services are highly sought after for your information, for a lot more than _grade bumps._ This is just something I do on the side for fun," he informed her haughtily, clearly cradling what was left of his deflated pride.

Again, his claim to fame piqued her interest. On the outside he seemed like a dorky high school kid that should just be trying to avoid getting beat up, but he also seemed to have this intelligence and mystery floating around his 'job'.

It made her a bit uncomfortable.

She knew all about living two lives. And she certainly wasn't interested in getting to know anyone who lived a similar life. She was here to get _away_ from that.

And yet…was it a crime to admit he was pretty damn cute with his freckles and glasses and ruddy red hair?

The only guys she'd ever really had available to her were the badass, greaser types. That could get really old, really fast. This kid was the complete opposite of badass, though.

"Okay fine, so you're a student hacker by day and a crook by night, I don't really care. What I care about is getting you to fix my situation for me," she insisted harshly, trying to ignore his put out pout.

"I'm not a crook…" he grumbled under his breath, but turned to look at the screen anyways.

Tapping his fingers in a rapid dance across the keyboard, he called up a black screen with all sorts of nonsensical text dashing across it. Presumably it all meant something, but to her it was just gibberish.

There was a reason she'd needed to hire someone to hack for her.

"So," he said in a near clinical voice, "this is the server that will allow me to get into the school database. Before you tell me who or what it is you want hacked, you're going to have to pay up."

"Are you usually this straight up, or did I offend you?" She asked, voice dripping sarcasm, even as she unbutton the top of her school blazer to reach inside and pull out the wad of cash.

"I can be subtle, too," he mumbled, and she rolled her eyes at his not-so-subtle eyeing of her revealed cleavage.

She knew better than to carry cash where someone could easily take it. She also knew how teenage boys reacted to a girl pulling cash out of their bra.

In this situation, both pieces of knowledge would come in handy.

Sashaying over to the chair beside him, she sat down, carefully crossing her legs. His green eyes widened comically as he nervously adjusted his glasses frames, licking his lips.

To his credit, he was making a valiant effort to not look like a total pig.

To her credit, she wasn't making it easy.

"Are you, uh, you gonna do that back up? Wouldn't want to give anyone the wrong impression," he said uncomfortably, glancing back towards the computer screen.

It was obvious he had more experience with hacking computers than getting it on with girls.

Was it bad that she found that adorable?

"What impression would that be?" She asked, grinning a little at the dark flush rising in his pale cheeks.

"You know how it is, babe. You've already made your conclusions about me. I'm just a crook of a computer hacker to you. And I know absolutely nothing about you," he said casually, shrugging like it was an inevitable truth of the world.

Artemis felt the tiniest bit of guilt inside her. She had just assumed he was a crook. She could blame it on the fact that he was a hacker or on her own past, but in the end she had jumped to conclusions.

Not that she was going to admit that.

"My name is not babe," she said proudly, instead, "My name is" –

"Artemis Crock. _I know._ I'm a hacker, remember? And I'm pretty brilliant, believe it or not," he said cockily and she couldn't help grinning at his over-inflated ego.

"So than why aren't you finished yet, _Kid Flash?_" She questioned, once again reaching out to flick his hipster frames, though this time he had the presence of mind to dodge and grab her hand.

He wasn't lying, he was pretty fast. Not many people had better reflexes than her.

"Maybe I just like to take things slow and enjoy myself, _babe,_" he responded in a voice laced with implications, dropping her hand back in her lap.

She coughed back a laugh at the innuendo, enjoying the way it made him smile. He seemed very…competitive.

He seemed a little taken aback when she smiled back at him. She liked that too.

For a moment he lost himself in her grey eyes, but quickly cleared his throat, forcing himself to focus on the task at hand.

"So who am I hacking today? Boyfriend? Ex-boyfriend? That creepy guy that lives next door?" He asked, idly flicking through the school database like it was a TV menu.

Standing up, she leaned over his shoulder, easily taking control of the mouse as she scrolled to the picture of Mr. Harper under the employee listings.

His intense blue eyes stared her down through the screen, and she felt a chill pass through her.

He wasn't nearly as endearing as the redhead currently trying to just keep breathing as her unbuttoned shirt passed right by his field of vision.

"Him. He may have filed a report containing some…sensitive information about my situation," she said, looking down at Kid Flash, who was frowning at the screen.

"This guy?" He asked, suddenly not interested in her cleavage, and rocketing closer to the screen like it might be lying to him.

"This guy," she confirmed, crossing her arms firmly as he glanced from her to the teacher's profile, and then back again.

"That can't be right. Roy wouldn't do anything to a babe like you. He's not that sort of guy," Kid Flash insisted adamantly, shaking his head as though unable to believe his eyes.

Pushing a camouflaged button on the arm of his innocuous hipster framers, the lenses split in half, the first layer flipping upwards. It must work as some sort of magnifying feature.

He suddenly looked twenty times dorkier and twenty times more like he knew what he was doing.

He also seemed to really dislike what she was implying about 'Roy'.

"You know him?" She asked carefully, and the hacker looked slightly embarrassed.

"I ah, may or may not be friends with him…you know outside of school," he admitted. "We've known each other since forever. It just happens that I ended up going to the school where he got his first job."

"So you guys still connect outside of school?" She asked innocently, cocking her hip with a thoughtful expression on her face.

"You could say that," he mumbled guiltily.

Smiling dangerously at his guilty expression, she gently slid a finger along the lightning bolt on his flash t-shirt.

Grabbing him by his collar, she yanked him forward roughly so that she could peer straight into his eyes.

"So would you say you know each other well enough that he's told you anything about me or my family?" She asked darkly, and he looked startled as she revealed the teeth beneath her Venus flytrap.

"What, no, of course not, I'm pretty sure I'd remember if he mentioned someone as beautiful as you," he sputtered nervously, leaning away as she drew him in even closer, frowning curiously at his confused expression.

Sighing in frustration, she let him fall back in his chair, hands going to her hips.

"I just don't get it. I keep trying to find something…_bad_ about you. You're a hacker. You should have some ulterior motive. But no matter what I do, you're just so innocent," she said in an almost critical way, tilting her head at him.

"I'm not innocent," he informed her, straightening his shirt casually, and readjusting his hat on his head, "I'm just not what you're used to. You keep expecting me to be bad because that's the sort of people that you know best. I'm not innocent, but I am a good person. I'm the sort of person you've never bothered getting to know before."

Her expression relaxed, still regarding him curiously, but in a slightly less accusatory way.

His cheeks flushed as she appraised him like some strange creature she had never laid eyes on before.

A slight flush highlighted her own cheeks when she looked into his brilliant green eyes and saw the same curiosity reflected back at her.

"Fine. You win, maybe you're not so bad after all," she conceded. "But even if you do know _Roy _I still need you to hack his history. No matter how nice you or he is, I can't allow him to report on me."

"Easy, babe," he assured her with a grin, but it was weak compared to his usual bright expression.

In a blur of fingers and keyboard commands, he returned to his little black box of strange text. It was soon filled with all sorts of new gibberish. In less than a minute, he had completed whatever code he was writing.

His finger rested gently on top of the enter key, but he hesitated, frowning at the blinking cursor like it could tell him something.

"Is everything alright?" Artemis asked anxiously, pacing closer, but she wasn't sure Kid Flash even heard her.

Leaning closer, he adjusted his over-large frames spastically, eyes flicking rapidly around the screen. Licking his lips nervously, he looked at her, then back at the screen.

Staring at it again for another couple of seconds, he gave a sigh, some sort of internal fight seeming to resolve within him.

"Look, Artemis," he said suddenly, trying to make his voice sound tougher than he felt. "Roy is my friend. Business is business, I get that. Robin gets that. But Robin also knows my connection with Roy, and he put me on this job for a reason. I think…I _know_, that he would want me to consider carefully before agreeing to do something that might get Roy in trouble. You know what I'm saying?"

"Yah I know what you're saying," Artemis said with an offended glower, "You're saying just because I come from a rough background that I must be trying to" –

"Okay, no, you definitely _don't_ get what I'm saying," he interrupted hurriedly, grabbing her hands in an effort to slow down her impending rampage. "All I'm trying to tell you is that Roy isn't a bad guy. That doesn't mean he's impervious to having problems with people, so if that's all this is, than fine. But that doesn't mean I should go through with this assuming that's all this is. _That_ would be being innocent. And I know better than that. I know that sometimes you've just got to look out for your own…okay?" He asked uncertainly, feeling her hands go limp in his.

She drew back, turning away from him as she huddled within herself, a certain, grey misery exuding in place of her usual strength and sarcasm.

"I know," she repeated quietly, but this time there was a note of dread in her voice. "I'm not trying to wreck anything for you friend. I'm just trying to stop him from wrecking this for me. I worked too hard to get here to have it all ruined just because some random teacher happens to know my older sister. I'm tired of being compared to her, connected to her, just because we happen to share the same bloodlines."

Her shoulders hunched, squeezing her arms around her body as though that would help to hold herself together.

Standing up slowly, KF put a hand on her shoulder in concern, but she ducked away from him, refusing to show her face.

Feeling panic blossom inside as he wondered what exactly his concern for Roy had started, he tried to turn her to face him but she stubbornly pulled away again.

When he tried to step around to face her, she finally spun around to glare at him.

"What the hell are you doing?" She demanded with a cross of anger and near-amusement in her voice at his not-so-subtle antics.

"Whoa, um, nothing, just…well, I thought maybe I pushed too hard and I made you cry and that…that…" he trailed off glancing embarrassedly down at their close proximity.

She raised an eyebrow, pursing her lips at his enraptured expression.

He flushed awkwardly and hurried on to say, "It just wouldn't have been cool of me, to make a pretty lady like you cry."

"Well I'm not the sort to cry over something small like this," she said dryly, stepping farther away from him in hopes that it might help him in forming coherent sentences again.

There was no sign of the frightened, lonely girl that had appeared for a few seconds when she talked about her connection to her older sister.

"It didn't sound like something small. It kind of sounded like a big deal, to me," Wally commented, and she glanced at him sideways, but said nothing.

It was obviously not a topic she was interested in talking about, with Mr. Harper, with him, or with anyone.

"If it helps," he continued eagerly, "I think I know what you mean. Being compared to someone just because you're related? Man, my Uncle, he's like, the original Flash in our business, and everyone expects me to be just like him, except that I don't think it's really in me to be" –he cut himself off seeing her confused expression at his ramblings. "Or…maybe it's not the same at all," he said weakly, feeling stupid for trying and yet unable to stop himself wanting to put that proud expression back on her face.

She drifted closer to him with an expression that seemed dazed and far away. He caught his breath, trying not to show how totally nervous he got with her wandering so close to him.

They had just met after all. It would be really weird to fantasize about kissing her, right?

Right…

"I guess it just sucks, not being able to be the person people want you to be, huh?" He asked hesitantly, and this seemed to finally catch her attention.

"You have no idea," she told him, smiling wryly at his nervous expression.

He noticed that her cheeks were also a noticeable pink, but she played it off so naturally that she made him want to doubt his own eyes.

She was good at that, he realized. Acting tougher than she was, to hide whatever she was really feeling. It was fascinating to him, kind of like she was the most complicated code he had ever encountered.

Somehow, he didn't think saying he wanted to hack her would sound as romantic out loud as it did in his head, though.

With this realization, he was able to maintain a cool head and smile benignly at her before walking back over to the computer.

"Well if that's _all_ this is about," he teased and even heard her give a small laugh from behind him.

"Yes, that's all. Nothing major at all. And while I hate to make you sell out your fellow redhead, my guilt isn't going to stop me, unfortunately. No matter how cute you are when you're flustered, I still need to know if he's got anything on me or Jade," she told him playfully, flicking his glasses affectionately.

This time he didn't respond right away, rather looking at her in a strained, quizzical way.

"Did you say…Jade?" He asked, straightening his glasses in what she was begin to recognize as a nervous habit.

"Yes…? That's the name of my sister. It's any mention of her that I need you to be looking for," Artemis explained, feeling a mix of confusion and dread as he began to look as stunned as he had when she first mentioned Roy.

His expression went totally blank as he stared at her, clearly trying to make some connection that she didn't understand.

Flipping the top layer of his glasses down, he looked at her carefully, and then flipped them back up, and then back down, each time his expression growing more and more amused.

"Oh whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa….how did I not notice before…oh man, I bet Dick knew the second he saw you, I'm so dumb," he muttered in a way that made her wonder if he really was crazy.

He certainly looked it as he absentmindedly continued to flick the magnifying half of his glasses up and down.

"What the hell are you talking about, Kid?" She asked, grabbing his hand to stop his annoying magnifying and minimizing of her face.

She didn't like knowing he was analyzing her like a computer screen.

"It's just, I didn't realize your sister was that Jade chick. And trust me, Roy definitely, ah, _knows_ Jade, but he certainly won't have anything about his relationship with her on file, much less in an official report," he said in an amused voice.

"And why would that be?" She asked, a dangerous glint in her voice at the implications of his tone.

He snickered immaturely and said, "Well he can't very well have the school board knowing he's screwing a crook, can he?"

He expected her to laugh with him, or be disgusted or…something. But all he got was silence.

Straightening in confusion, he looked at her face, and was horrified to see the quiet fury growing there as she slowly turned an unnatural shade of red.

"He's…doing…what?" She asked slowly through gritted teeth. Her fists were positively white, as she balled them up tightly in fury.

"Oh, shit, you did not know, did you," he swore to himself, and realized it was past time to play major damage control. "Well, uh, you see I was just heading over to his house one day, and I didn't let him know I was coming and actually Dick was with me and we just thought it would be fun to drop by, no need to call in advance or anything. So we get there and we're knocking and he's all, give me a minute, I'm busy, but he's sounds stressed so we keep knocking. The next thing we know, the door comes flying open and he's standing there with this half-dressed Vietnamese chick wrapped around him and she's all _he said, he's busy_ and then she slams the door on us! Dick was freaking out and being all boy-genius, he tracks her down on the web and finds out that she's actually Cheshire from the…well, if she's your sister you problem know she's a part of –hey, are you even listening?"

Artemis clearly was not listening. In fact, her gaze was almost as far away as it had been when she first mentioned her past life –only this time there was a lot less sadness and a lot more anger on her face.

"Babe?" He asked hesitantly.

No response, except for further gritting over her teeth.

"Babe," he tried again, shaking her gently. "Come on, babe! _Artemis,_" he finally tried, shaking her hard, which seemed to finally bring her to attention.

She looked at him dazedly for a minute and then said with full conviction, "I'm going to kill that son of a bitch."

"Um no, how about not committing a felony? Let's try solving this another way," Kid Flash pleaded, seeing the flinty gleam in her eyes. "How about, instead of first degree murder, we just think for a minute, how about that? I mean, the way I heard it, after Dick went and grilled him later, she totally came onto him!"

"And that gives him an excuse to what, fuck my sister, who, need I remind you is a criminal intent on dragging me back into the underbelly of the criminal world?" She demanded, and he flinched at her rage.

"Well, can you really blame him? The girls in your family are total babes, I mean, if it were you, I totally would have caved too," he said desperately.

Suddenly, her expression changed from enraged to embarrassed. He wondered why, and then realized what he'd said.

Groaning internally, he prepared to defend himself, but then caught sight of the little grin lingering around the corner of her mouth.

Maybe his thoughtless compliment wasn't such a bad thing after all.

"Fine…I won't kill him just yet, but only because you're sweet," she grumbled, giving him a shy smirk, to which he responded with a large, cheesy grin.

She was tempted to pull those silly, hipster frames off his face to see just how cute he'd look without them.

Instead, she just moved to flick them and allowed him to block her easily. He gave her hand a subtle squeeze, as though to say, I saw what you did there.

Her cheeks lit up as though to say, I felt what you did there.

And his grin told her exactly how much he enjoyed their quiet flirtations.

"I told you," he said casually, sliding his hands into his pockets, "Roy's not a bad guy. You've got nothing to worry about from him."

"Hmph. I guess," she said grudgingly. "At the very least, you're right about one thing. He won't be telling anyone about whatever he's got going on with Jade, no matter how uncomfortable it makes him to see me in his class."

"It would make me uncomfortable too if every time I saw you I had to think about screwing your sister," Kid Flash said flippantly, only to realize that he'd once again spoken thoughtlessly. "Not that I do! Or would! Just cause I saw her, you know, getting it on with him, doesn't mean…I mean…that, no, I –I'm not the sort of guy too" –

"Oh Kid…oh man…your face…you should see your…face," Artemis wheezed as she laughed hysterically at the expression of livid embarrassment on the hacker's face. "Wow, I haven't laughed that hard in forever," she said, still giggling as she wiped tears from her eyes.

He was still simmering in embarrassment, and even if he hadn't been he probably wouldn't say so aloud, but she really was beautiful when she laughed that hard.

"Glad I'm good for a laugh at least," he said weakly instead, tugging at the tuque on his head.

"I have to admit, this does have Jade's name written all over it. Answering the door in the middle of hooking up with a guy…still, I have to wonder if it's a regular arrangement, or just a onetime thing," she mused, and Kid Flash frowned at her bemused expression.

"Why do you call it an arrangement? From what I hear, it's more than just hooking up. According to Roy, they're in a real relationship," he told her, but Artemis merely shook her head, disbelievingly.

"That's not possible," she said bluntly, "Jade isn't the relationship type. In the world we come from, relationships aren't a thing you do. It's too dangerous to get that attached. It just slows you down."

"Weren't or aren't?" He blurted, scrambling up from his chair, suddenly a mess of twitchy nerves out of seemingly nowhere.

While he clearly wasn't called Kid Flash for nothing, he didn't seem fully comfortable in his body either. He hardly seemed capable of keeping still right now, for example.

"Weren't or aren't what?" She asked, confused and his sudden change in conversational direction.

"Relationships weren't or aren't things you do? I mean, you've left that life behind. So now what? Are they still…a thing you don't do?" He questioned nervously, and it finally dawned on her where he was going with this line of questioning.

While she couldn't deny that she had been flirting with him a little bit, and that he _was_ attractive in a cute, innocent sort of way, and mysterious in a hacker-for-justice way as well…she still wasn't sure how to respond.

"I…I guess I do. Or could. Or, I guess I don't really know, to be honest. Things have been hectic, to say the least. My decision to leave the life wasn't a highly supported one. Getting away and staying away has been my main concern, not getting laid," she explained, and he twisted away from her, looking squeamish at her choice of wording.

"I said nothing about getting laid," he corrected in a flustered tone, and she laughed at his embarrassment.

It continued to amuse and amaze her that they could come from two such different walks of life.

"Sorry," she assured him with a not-so-assuring laugh, "I'm just not used to the concept of _dating._ Like, holding hands and getting ice cream and having your chair pulled out for you and stuff. All that is practically alien to me."

"You sure know how to let your hair down," he said and she wondered briefly if she had scared him away.

Then she had to wonder why that bothered her so much. It wasn't like she really _knew _him.

But then again, wasn't that half of the fun?

"So?" She demanded, forcing her nerves not to manifest in her tough voice.

"So what?" He replied, doing a significantly less impressive job of hiding his nerves.

"Ugh, waste of time," she grumbled, turning away from him huffily.

"What is? Me?"

"No, not you," she said proudly, unwilling to admit the way he was pulling her about. "It was just a waste of time to do any of this. Worse, it was a waste of money that my family can't really afford right now. After all, I could have just asked you about Jade. In fact, I could have just gone on the way I was before. There's clearly no way Roy will ever admit to knowing anything about me or my family."

"Well, uh, well it doesn't_ have_ to be a _total_ waste of time," Wally sputtered desperately. She quirked an eyebrow at him and he shut his eyes briefly, praying for courage, and then said hastily, "I know you paid a lot of money for our…services. Our hacking services, that is. And since me and Dick worked your case, we split the money sixty-forty. I got the bigger half of the money since I was doing the hacking, but since I didn't actually have to do much hacking…I don't see why I couldn't just give it back," he suggested shyly.

Her eyes widened and for a second he caught a glimpse of the truly innocent side of her. The side that knew nothing about kindness, much less the type of person that would return money.

"I…guess, you could…do that. If you wanted to. Though I don't know why you would," she said hesitantly, looking at him with a suspicion that only confirmed his thought that she found this change of heart too good to be true.

"Of course," he replied suavely, pulling the wad of cash from his pocket and waving it in front of her tantalizingly.

"No strings attached?" She asked, reaching out a hand to grab at the bills.

Yanking them away at the last second, he said, "Okay, maybe a couple strings attached." Seeing her expression of hurt betrayal, he quickly went on to say, "I'm happy to give you your money back, but it sounds pretty boring to just hand it over. You see, I was banking on a difficult hacking job to fill my time today. But now you've gone and taken away my entertainment."

"What are you suggesting?" She asked, afraid to hope again, but he certainly knew how to string her along when he slid an arm around her shoulders like that, looking down at her with an adorable grin.

"I'm just saying, it'd be a lot more fun to pay you back by taking you out. You know, holding hands, getting ice cream, pulling your chair out for you," he teased her, and she blushed at his reference to her definition of 'dating' from earlier.

"Holding hands? Can't say I've done that before. Sounds…strange," she replied flippantly, deciding if he could play this game, so could she.

"Baby steps, Arty, baby steps," he assured her with a roll of his eyes, as he removed his arm in favour of lacing their fingers together snuggly. "See? Holding hands. Most people think it's nice."

"I don't know…maybe…" she drawled, using her free hand to tap her fingers along her pouted lip in exaggerated contemplation. "It feels funny, with those gloves on. It's like holding hands with an animal."

"Gee, thanks," he said in his most sarcastic voice, peeling his fingerless gloves off dramatically. "If you're really so opposed to holding hands with me, you'll need a better excuse than that. I would suggest going with, I don't want to hold your hand," he added, and she giggled at his put out tone, grabbing one of his hands spontaneously.

It still felt strange, but as much as she made her excuses, it didn't feel strange in a bad way. It was…pleasant.

His palm was cool, and his fingers were strong when they wrapped around hers. They were secure. She wasn't used to feeling…secure. But she was ninety nine percent certain she was willing to find out whether or not she liked it.

"I never said I _don't_ want to go out with you," she corrected carefully, "I just think I should be allowed to have higher standards for the first guy I do this dating thing with. And I might add, I don't think it can be with a hipster. The hat and glasses thing is cute, but it's way too cliché for my first date."

He groaned, rolling his eyes comically, though it was obviously for her enjoyment as he swung her around by their adjoined hands in mock frustration.

"You'll be the end of me, woman!" He bemoaned, allowing her to snatch the tuque from his head with ease. "Next thing I know you'll be telling me to bleach my hair," he said in his most forlorn voice, as he flattened his mussed red hair.

"Nah, I think the women in my family just have a thing for redheads. Blondes were more my mom's thing, and we saw where that got her," she said offhandedly, reaching up to grab his glasses, though he automatically ducked out of the way this time.

"Hey now, careful with those. These are high tech magnification hipster glasses," he told her half-jokingly.

Despite his tone, he did remove them with care, folding them delicately before sliding them into his shirt pocket.

Seeing her quizzical look he informed her that they were, "Official Robin attire" and "A critical part of the uniform."

"So your hipster look really is a…uniform?" She asked curiously, and he grinned down at her.

She would be lying to say he didn't look twice as cute without the oversized glasses blocking his stunning green eyes and smattering of freckles.

"Well, yah. Hipsters think they're being fashion forward, but really, they're just into whatever style everyone else is wearing. And what better uniform can a top secret hacker have than to look like everyone else?" He posited and she had to admit, his logic was fairly sound.

If she hadn't seen him earlier that day, he wouldn't have stood out to her at all when she first entered the computer lab.

"So…now that I've stripped you of your _uniform_," she said suggestively, "and since I'm even holding your hand," her fingers slid through his effortlessly, and his grip tightened automatically, "does that mean the next step is for you to take me out for ice cream?"

"That seems like the next logical step," he agreed, backing up a step to bow to her chivalrously. "So, Ms. Artemis Crock, would you like to accompany me for ice cream on this fine autumn day?"

"So let me get this straight," she started, and he rolled his eyes. She really was going to make this as difficult as possible.

"If you have to, but I can't hold this position forever," he responded, still half-bowed in front of her.

"You're taking me out for ice cream."

"Yes, that's the idea."

"But with the money I gave you."

"Well you don't _have_ to point that out, but okay."

"So really I'm taking you out for ice cream?"

"Oh, stop over thinking it," he huffed with frustration, straightening and grabbing her hand to drag her out the door.

She half-heartedly dug in her heels and looked back at her with an unimpressed expression.

"You must really want this date, _Kid Flash_" she teased, and his freckles faded behind the rush of color in his cheeks at the use of his 'code name'.

"You could say that. And you can just call me Wally. Wally West."

**A/N: Soo, there's your dose of Spitfire for the day! I hope you all liked it! The reviews have been slow for this story and I'm not really sure why, not that it matters since I'm just writing it for your pleasure, but I do like constructive criticism and all that, so if you could just take a minute to write a review, I would greatly appreciate it :) ALSO, I just wanted to say, I meant no insult to anyone who has a 'hipster' sense of fashion. This story was actually inspired by two things: 1) The song "All-Star" by Smashmouth. 2) I was walking to school and there was this lesbian couple in front of me. One had beautiful red hair and was dressed like a hipster with the glasses and the tuque and when she leaned in to kiss her girlfriend it was just so cute and inspiring! So I decided to write a story involving Hipster!Wally :) Hope you all enjoyed and see you next Friday!**


	4. The Test

**A/N: Yikes, this chapter took forever to get up! I'm really sorry about that! You guys have been really kind in your reviews, so I really do feel bad that it's taken so long to prepare this chapter…I switched computers recently and it's been quite troublesome getting my files over from my old device. However, I do have them now, so I'm back to updating regularly! Huzzah!**

**Disclaimer: Young Justice is not mine but I am extremely excited for it to FINALLY come off hiatus!**

Artemis lingered impatiently outside the classroom. She hadn't planned to make a point of ducking out of classes early, but if that's what it took to track these guys down, she'd do it as often as she needed to.

Dick Grayson wasn't exactly an easy guy to find, after all.

It had taken her more than a day to find out even a crumb of information about his class schedule, and for someone with her background in foraging for information, that was a long time.

She wasn't about to let him get away so easily this time.

The bell shrilled its song of freedom and the students came pouring out right on cue. She scanned the crowd from her vantage point off to the side, and the second she caught sight of his finely combed black hair, she darted into the crowd, only coming out again when she had a firm grip on his thin arm.

"Really, Ms. Crock, this isn't how I like to call my meetings. Surely there are more couth ways to go about this," he complained snootily, brushing invisible dust from his finely pressed suit jacket.

"Oh give up the great-than-thou act. Robin isn't exactly the mafia, and believe me, I would know the difference," she snapped.

Dick appraised her carefully, before shrugging.

"Fine, if that's the way you want to do things," he said, and his voice no longer carried the note of upper-class disdain. "What can I do for you, Artemis? From what I heard, you're more interested in doing business with a different part of Robin, not me."

The dig was obviously not accidental. If she was going to call him out, he wasn't letting her off the hook either. She had the feeling he wanted her to know he knew all about her date with Wally the other day.

"As if you don't know what I want already. From what _I've_ heard, you seem to know everything about me and my family," she accused sharply and he gave a semi-apologetic grin with a helpless shrug.

"What can I say? I was speaking on behalf of Robin before. As Dick Grayson? I may know a thing or two about your sister and Roy."

"And Wally says you're certain they're a…thing? Not just a…a…"

"From what Roy says they're not just shacking up. He seems quite certain whatever they have is very real. From what I know of Cheshire that could be foolish but," and another shrug here, "he couldn't be talked out of it. Believe me, I tried."

"I don't think you tried it my way," she assured him, and he seemed to approve of her darker intentions, if not for the same reason as she.

"That's true. You obviously have a higher emotional stake in this than I do, and a somewhat varied…perspective on things. I'm unsurprised that you've decided to take things into your hands in sending Roy a clear warning. What I still don't understand is why you didn't go to Wally for the material. We both know Roy and we're both talented hackers. The obvious choice would be Wally, given your relationship to him," Dick said and it was obvious this had been eating him up inside from the confused frown on his face.

It seemed like boy-genius wasn't so great in the relationships area. At least, not enough so that he could comprehend why she wouldn't want to ask Wally for this particular favour.

"Wally is…" she started, wondering how to phrase it in a way that wouldn't sound totally soft, but quickly gave in with a sigh. "Wally is about as innocent as a hacker can be. He's so certain that what you guys are doing is justice. Maybe it is, for all I know. But what I'm doing is personal justice…or I guess you might call it blackmail. He doesn't need to be mixed up in that."

Dick seemed pleased with her answer, and she couldn't fathom why. It took her a couple seconds for the dime to drop, but by the time she realized with horror what Dick's evil master plan was, it was too late.

"Hey babe, what's up?" Wally's eager voice asked, appearing beside her like he'd simply dropped from the sky.

His body, so relaxed as he leaned an elbow on her shoulder, didn't show any sign of actually having to move that fast, and yet he somehow did. It was practically a super power as far as he was concerned.

And way too convenient for Dick's purposes.

"Well, I suppose I'll just leave you in Wally's capable hands. I wouldn't want to encroach on his territory after all," Dick assured them both with a wicked glint to his innocent expression.

She was certain there was steam coming out of her ears. He just thought he was _so smooth_ playing her obvious affections for the playful redheaded boy against her.

Well, he clearly didn't know as much about her as he thought.

"Oi, Dick," she said bluntly, brushing Wally off to grab the little tricksters retreating form. "I am no one's territory, you got that? And no matter what my relationship with him is, that's not going to stop me protecting what is _my _territory. I didn't want to involve him, but don't think you dragging him into this is going to stop me blowing your cover right here, right now if you're going to force me." Her voice was dead serious, her expression unflinching…

And he was grinning, looking more impressed than he had up until this point.

"Wha" –she started, spinning to face Wally, but he had an equally excited expression on his own face.

While she was glad he wasn't upset, that didn't make her any less confused.

He rushed forward to grab her in a tight hug that nearly lifted her right off the ground as he mumbled something about, "I knew you could do it" into her hair.

"What the hell?" She demanded, and he quickly set her down and backed off, looking sheepish.

It had taken a total of one date to realize that Artemis wasn't joking when she said she didn't know much about 'actually dating'. Trying to kiss her in public hadn't been his best idea.

Kissing her goodbye at her house after double checking that no one was watching…that went a bit better.

Sometimes, in his excitement, he would forget that he needed to take things slow and gentle with her.

Sometimes she was just too easy to be excited over.

And she was always too easy to fall head over heels for.

"What did I do?" She demanded again, looking confused, and yet another thing to learn about Artemis was that she didn't like to be confused.

She liked to be confident and on top of things. This was the opposite of her type of situation.

"You passed the test!" Wally blurted, only to have Dick smack him sharply upside the head. "Ow," the redhead whined, rubbing his sore temple with a bitter glare at his best friend.

"With standards like yours to live up to, it's not a very hard test. She's far more discreet than you ever are," Dick told him off huffily.

Artemis coughed back a laugh at Wally's put-out expression. He really was too excitable. She wondered how he made it in an organization like Robin at all.

"Be that as it may, I'm still waiting. What test?" She pressed and Dick turned back to her with a smooth grin.

"We haven't been jerking you around this whole time for nothing, Artemis," Dick told her nonchalantly. "Like he said, we've been…testing you. In order to see if you're ready for me to make you an offer you simply can't refuse."

"Can't?" She asked suspiciously.

"Believe me. You won't want to."

**A/N: Cliff-hanger! And there was even some Spitfire in this one…though in response to some people saying that Artemis was too quick to have feelings for Wally, I wanted to make it clear that she isn't instantly trusting of him. She still has personal space issues, and she still isn't quite sure how to act around him. Like most teenage couples, she's stuck between wanting a real relationship, wanting to make out, and just wanting to get to know him. It's got to be confusing so if her actions are a bit inconsistent, that's my reasoning as to why…hopefully that's a good enough reason :D**

**Hopefully you're all still enjoying the story, and are happy to hear its back to regular updates! Huzzah! Let me know what you're thinking in a review if you so wish :)**


	5. Personal Justice

**A/N: What is this? An on-time update? I didn't know I was capable of those…**

**Disclaimer: Young Justice is not mine!**

"You want me to do _what?_"

"We want you to join Robin," Wally repeated cheerfully. "It was my idea, and at first Dick wasn't convinced because he thought you wouldn't be committed enough, so we decided to test you to see how far you were willing to go."

"And…it was _good_ that I wanted to sell you out? Just because I thought it was right?" She questioned hesitantly, unable to believe her own ears.

"Well, doing the right thing is kind of what Robin is all about," Wally explained. "You know, we're fighting the good fight, for justice and all that. And you were just trying to protect your family; no one can really say there's anything _wrong_ with that."

"You guys are hackers though," she pointed out bluntly.

"So?" Wally asked, that same note of offence creeping into his voice that she had heard when they first talked about his job as a hacker. It was obvious that he didn't think there was anything morally wrong with being a hacker.

Seeing that Artemis was stuck between showing a lack of faith in Wally and staying in the dark completely, Dick decided to step in and let her off the hook just this once.

He knew how difficult Wally could be when it came to the concept of justice. He tended to see the world in a very black and white way.

"Yes, we are hackers. But we also happen to be hackers that are employed by the police in several different cities. We only do what the law asks us to do. The in-school scams are simply practice for some the trainees. We're not really supposed to get any real cases until we're eighteen," he told her seriously, and Artemis' eyebrows shot farther upwards with each new unbelievable sentence.

"So…if what you're saying is true…Robin is like a training program for people that hack…for the _police?_ Like their own personal supply of crime-catching geniuses?" Artemis asked, trying, for Wally's sake, not to sound completely incredulous, but she was finding it difficult.

"That's the idea," Dick said simply, and Artemis just couldn't take it anymore.

"I find that hard to believe," she retorted, and Wally immediately looked injured.

She supposed in the world he came from, hackers could just be good guys that helped the police. To him, they were the good guys, not the guys that had the ability to steal from banks or turn off security cameras for crooks.

"Whoa –what? You mean you don't believe us? I'm hurt, babe." He said it in a joking way, but she was pretty sure it wasn't one hundred percent faked.

Sucking in a patient breath, she forced herself to think outside the box. She had to keep reminding herself that she'd left that life behind, that she was in a different world now.

A _very_ different world

"Well, I suppose it's plausible enough," she said slowly, forcing herself to really consider what she was saying. "It's not like there's a school for hackers, so you have to learn somewhere and you're not really doing any harm here with the regular, innocuous stuff you're known for. And I guess this is the best way to train a team of super-geniuses under the radar, if that's really what the police need," she conceded.

Wally's expression became triumphant, and she hated to bring that crumbling down, but there was a pressing question on her mind that simply didn't line up with what they were telling her.

"What I'm finding hard to believe," she added, heart giving a quiet thump of displeasure at his fading smile, "is the juvenile record wipe on Cameron. That's not something the police would allow under any circumstances. Believe me; I know a thing or two about records and trying to get them clean."

"A juvi wipe…? You must have just heard a misfired rumour, Arty. That's not the sort of thing Robin is allowed to do," Wally said in a confused voice, a frown marring his normally cheerful face. He seemed quite perturbed at the thought.

"But I know it happened," she argued. "For one thing, there's no way he'd still be carting drugs otherwise. He's not smart enough to go this far on his own. Plus, when I leaned on him, he was about to crack. He obviously has _some_ connection with Robin."

Wally looked at her like she had two heads, then looked uncertainly at Dick. Artemis followed his gaze and was surprised to see that the smaller boy appeared to have lost his cool for the first time.

In fact, he was even starting to look a little flustered by this line of questioning.

"Dick…?" Wally asked in accusatory tone, obviously noticing his clearly guilty expression just as much as Artemis had. Dick said nothing, trying desperately to look innocent.

"Oh, I get it," Artemis said with a laugh that mocked Dick's embarrassment, "that was a solo mission. You did it on your own time, huh? I guess it's unavoidable with an organization like this. Give all you super-geniuses the information and tools to be hackers and then just leave you alone with it? Someone's bound to crack and use it for something else eventually. No wonder you were so determined to interrupt me when I…leaned on him, the other day."

Sighing quietly at her accusation, Dick raised his hands in mock defeat.

"You did go the unconventional route in trying to track us down," he admitted. "Most people are only interested in the grade bumps. That's why I took such an interest in your particular situation. It's also why I listened when Wally suggested bringing you into the fold."

This was clearly directed at Wally who was still looking at his friend with a horrified expression, like he'd been abducted by aliens and replaced with a clone of the person he knew.

"Do you really think you're going to distract me so easily?" Artemis asked dryly. "You should know I'm not going to consider your proposal until you stop skirting my question. Why the wipe? And why not tell Wally? Did Cameron blackmail you about your part in Robin?"

"Cameron? No way, too stupid," Dick said dismissively, inspecting his perfectly manicured fingernails casually.

"Then why?" Artemis pressed.

"…it's sensitive information," Dick tried, but it was a weak excuse at best as he glanced desperately at his friend.

Unfortunately for him, Wally wasn't about to jump to his rescue.

"Answer the ladies question, Dick. I'm kind of wondering what you're doing under Robin's name, as well," Wally said dangerously, and Artemis looked at him with a new level of respect.

His expression of shattered innocence hadn't lasted long. There was an edge to his voice that she found attractive. It only showed that there was much more she had to learn about the redheaded boy.

Slipping an arm around his waist experimentally, she squeezed gently and felt how tightly his muscles were bunched. They relaxed slightly with her touch, but not nearly enough. This was obviously no laughing matter for him.

Seeing how they were ganging up on him, Dick finally gave up his charade completely.

"Okay, fine! I admit it. I wiped Cameron's juvenile record for him. What? Don't look at me like that," he said guiltily, as Wally glared at him furiously. "Bruce took my laptop away!"

"For how long?" Wally asked and Artemis couldn't actually believe he was considering this as a legitimately excuse for Dick's actions.

"_For a whole week,_" Dick whispered in an overdramatic, dreading tone.

Wally flinched sympathetically and Artemis stared at them both like they were strange animals.

She had never owned a laptop in her entire life. What was the big deal about losing one for a week?

"That's rough man, but that's no excuse," Wally said grudgingly.

"You don't understand," Dick moaned, the memory actually seeming to pain him. "I didn't know what to do with myself. It was the summer, I had no laptop, and I just…I _had_ to hack something. But there are no grades in the summer, there's no…anything! I was desperate. So when Cameron started looking around for a hacker…I just…I had to, okay!"

"Did you ever think about taking up a new hobby? Maybe…knitting? Or just getting a girlfriend?" Artemis suggested sarcastically.

Dick rolled his eyes, rubbing his temples as though giving that confession had been physically taxing.

"I don't have time for that sort of thing. I'm much too busy," he said dismissively, and Artemis shot Wally a questioning look.

He just shrugged, letting his arm fall about her shoulders when he did so. She was still getting used to the casual physical contact, but she didn't automatically push him away this time, at least. And he was…comfortable to have around her like that.

"But under Robin's name? No wonder the rumours have gotten so crazy this year," Wally said with an injured whine to his voice.

At least, he seemed less serious now, and less like he was going to disown his friend for committing a felony.

"I didn't exactly do it under Robin's name," Dick said in a hopeful voice, obviously desperate to get back in his friend's good graces. "Cameron assumed I was with Robin because he knew I was from Gotham and he knew I was a hacker, but I never _said_ I was from Robin. I gave him a fake name, and used a disposable number. I even left a signature in my hacking work."

"You left a signature? Dude, that's _so_ against Robin policy," Wally said despairingly.

Unintentionally, all his defenses of Robin were slowly but surely selling Artemis on its merit. It obviously was a heavily policed operation. And Wally at least was pretty big on whatever rules it held to.

"But that's just it, Wally," Dick explained, "I did everything the opposite of what Robin would do. I was really careful to cover me tracks, so even when the police checked it out, they wouldn't be looking for Robin or anyone associated with us. Even when Artemis was leaning on Cameron, there wasn't anything useful he could have told her. He would have just sent her looking for some non-existent guy named Jason Todd."

"…I have to say, that's kind of brilliant," Artemis admitted. "I mean, the signature, letting Cameron believe Jason Todd was a part of Robin, while everyone else would know he didn't exist? It's no wonder they call you a boy-genius."

"But Arty," Wally complained, as she turned on him, "it's not what we do. We're supposed to fight for _justice._"

"Old fashioned much?" She said critically, and he stepped closer looking at her with a burning passion, not unlike the steely edge he had presented when Dick seemed to have gone astray with his motives.

Her heart beat harder and she resisted the urge to step backwards, instead letting him invade her personal space bubble in a serious way.

"Maybe I'm just an old fashioned sort of guy," Wally murmured, expression softening as he looked down at her.

She wasn't able to move her gaze from his, but she felt his hand touching hers, and she knew this was one of those romantic moments she was supposed to hate, but he was just so _earnest _in his romantic approaches…

"Well…" Dick said with a loud, uncomfortable cough. "Not that I don't _love_ being the awkward third wheel, but I believe you came here looking for something in particular, Artemis?"

She quickly backed away from Wally, trying to ignore his disappointed expression. She hated letting him down, but she also didn't know how to be anyone but herself. And she wasn't ready for that level of mushy, couple-y-ness.

"You could say that," she conceded with a tilt of her head, referencing her willingness to blow their cover in the middle of the hallway only a short time earlier. "I need something that will show Mr.…err…_Roy,_ that I'm serious. Not because I think he's going to blab. I just want him to know that," she hesitated, glancing at Wally with trepidation before charging forward and saying, "I will mess him up more than my father ever could if he hurts my sister in any way."

"I see. I thought that's what you might be in the market for. I hear Cheshire has never really been the relationship type up until now."

Was Dick implying something? Artemis glared, unable to tell if he was hinting at her own newly formed relationship with Wally, but willing to be mad that he might be just the same.

"I'm not just projecting myself on her and Roy if that's what you think. Cheshire might be a cold blooded assassin, but Jade is my sister. She's family. If she's thinking of leaving the life, I want to support her. If Roy's a part of that, I want to support her. But if he's not? Or if he's the one playing her for one of your police deals? I will never forgive him," Artemis said stoutly, and Dick gave a short nod, like this confirmed something to him.

"Well, if blackmail is what you have in mind, I may have just what you need," he told her with a small grin, producing a USB from his belt with a flourish.

Walking over to the laptop he had set up on the desk, his fingers blurred across the keyboard, bringing up an audio clip faster than she thought was possible, even after seeing Wally at work.

Glancing at the redheaded boy, she caught sight of his overly innocent expression. His words about being second only to Robin in speed echoed in her head.

Looking back at Dick she appraised him once again. Robin was definitely an organization. Was it possible that he really was also a person?

Pressing enter, the audio from whatever recording Dick (Robin?) had gotten his hands on, began to play from the computer speakers.

"_Hngh…Jade…"_

"_Say it louder."_

"_Ja" –_

"Ew, okay, that was _not_ what I had in mind," Artemis blurted, feeling her face turning fifty shades of red at the clear implications of what they were listening to.

It was pretty obvious it wasn't a recording of a tea party, at the very least.

"Don't you have anything, I don't know, a little more subtle?" She pleaded, fairly certain her mind had been scarred for life by just that short clip.

"I thought you might say that. I do have a second piece prepared, but I can't give it to you unless you agree to join Robin," Dick told her calmly.

"And why is that?" Artemis asked, immediately suspicious of his cool, business-like tones.

"It contains top secret information that will scare a man like Mr. Harper, but give a girl like you way too much leverage. I can't give it to you unless I'm certain you won't misuse it, and the only way I can morally do that is to induct you into Robin," he explained.

Artemis stared at him, wheels spinning in her brain to try and guess at whatever 'information' he could have that would differ widely from his, ah, incriminating audio clip, yet still be available for misuse.

"Assuming I believe you when you say you work for the police," Artemis started, seeing Wally roll his eyes out of the corner of her eye at their return to the matter of 'believing', "what would a hacking organization want to do with me? I know nothing about hacking, and I have a record."

She said it flippantly, but the knowledge weighed within her like an anchor.

Her soul, according to any official organization or lawful institution, was tarnished beyond repair. Nothing on the level would want anything to do with her, realistically. How she had even gotten into a school like Gotham was still beyond her.

"One of the benefits of working for Robin is a clean slate. You get a free record wipe," Dick told her seriously, and Artemis felt her heart lurch within her chest.

The words 'record wipe' could do that to an ex-con. She knew it was too good to be true…but she wanted to believe him just the same.

A clean record and fighting for justice to atone for her sins? It was a lovely idea.

Unrealistic, but lovely.

Wally observed this longing flash emotions come over his love interest, and couldn't help reaching out to her.

How could he just stand there and watch her hurt? She was too beautiful, too fascinating, too…too everything to let her hurt like that.

Why should she be penalized for being born into the wrong family? It just wasn't fair.

Justice wasn't supposed to work like that.

"It's not too good to be true, babe. I swear, this is for real. We want you on our side," Wally encouraged her, squeezing her hand.

She squeezed back tentatively, emotions still torn within her. She heard him, and wanted to believe him, even more than she wanted to believe Dick. She just didn't know if she could.

"Well, Wally certainly wants you, anyways," Dick jibed, and Wally scowled as he once again intruded on the potentially romantic moment.

Aside from being the great Robin, he was probably also the professor of Cock-blocking 101.

"Oh, shut up, Dick," Wally growled, "I know you were interested in her from the start!" This time he got strange looks from both of them, and couldn't seem to figure out why.

"What?" He asked with a pout, and Dick coughed back a laugh, eyes flicking between Artemis' uncomfortable expression and Wally's confused one.

Seeing that Wally still didn't get it, he waved vaguely between himself and Artemis saying, "you really think that I ever…her? I'm not interested in fighting a losing battle, thanks."

"Wait, no, not like that, you know _that's_ not what I meant," Wally insisted, even as Dick melted back into a pile of laughter at his friend's embarrassment. "He wouldn't –_you_ wouldn't –when I'm…well, when we're…argh, stop it, you know what I meant! We're the good guys. _We _want you, Artemis, with us, not against us. That's it," he managed, despite the fact that he was red from collar to ear tips.

He and Artemis hadn't exactly discussed the nature of their relationship yet, but he liked to believe it wasn't as open ended as _that_ especially after the way she had kissed him goodbye after he walked her home just two days ago.

It had been a very memorable kiss, and not an experience he'd like to share with his best friend.

"Oh, leave him alone," Artemis finally broke into Dick's laughter, giving him a light shove.

She looked slightly uncomfortable, but also gave Wally a shy, hopeful glance. She even went so far as to reach out and gently link her pinky with his. It wasn't much, but it was a clear message.

They may not know each other terribly well, and they may not know where this was going, but she knew that she was only interested in Wally, and it was going to stay like that, at least for now.

"Okay, fine, I'll let him off the hook for now," Dick said with a sigh, wiping tears from his eyes as he tried to gain a semblance of his usual, cool attitude. "I'm assuming you'll have questions about how Robin works?"

"Naturally," Artemis confirmed.

"Well the first thing you have to know, in answer to your previous question, is that we don't operate solely on a members ability to hack. What you experienced was actually a slightly skewed version of our normal heists, because Robin assigned Kid Flash as both your primary hazard and your hacker," Dick explained loftily, once again back to his hyper-efficient attitude.

"You mean because he not only did the hacking for me, but also distracted me so that you could remain all mysterious with your disappearing acts?" She clarified.

"To put it roughly, yes," Dick agreed, though it seemed to pain him to say it like that. "Usually we would have two different people play the primary hazard and the hacker, but since he begged" –

-"I did _not_ beg" –

-"Robin let him take both jobs," Dick finished smoothly as though Wally hadn't objected at all.

"Question," Artemis interrupted, trying not to appear as confused as she was. "Why do you keep calling it a _primary hazard?_ Why not just say distraction?"

"Because, there's more than one. And he's not just meant to be a distraction. He's a hazard sign. The use of hazards dissuades some of our…less interesting clients from further pursuing Robin's assistance. It weeds out the crowd. Besides, the secondary hazards are the real warning signs. You remember Megan?" He questioned.

"The girl with the split personality?" Artemis responded, struggling to recall the girl in question.

She had appeared to be terrified of Robin when Artemis first tried to get information from her, all but shaking in her seat at the mention of him.

When Artemis later saw her during the, who's-Robin's-associate guessing game, she had seemed full of cheer and happiness, though.

"She's one of us," Dick said, confirming Artemis' suspicions. "She was your secondary hazard. We each have our talents and as you can see, she's something of a shape-shifter. That makes her the perfect warning sign for anyone with questionable motives."

"I'm flattered," Artemis replied dryly.

"You were a bit unconventional," Dick admitted. "That's why when you started to get too close, we assigned the elite team. As you witnessed, Kid Flash is pretty fast on his feet. He makes a good distraction."

Wally seemed to puff up with the praise, a grin on his face that said he knew exactly how fast and impressive his skill made him seem.

"So see, even if you can't hack, you can still be an invaluable member," Wally assured her in an eager voice, still glowing from the title of 'elite team'.

"I don't know," Artemis said slowly, glancing warily between them. She didn't want to let Wally down, but… "I don't really, um, _have_ any marketable skills. At least, not in this market."

"I would beg to differ," Dick said to her surprise. She would have thought Wally would be the one to jump to her defense. "You're strong, intimidating, and intuitive. To be somewhat figurative, you always seem to hit the bull's eye with your accusations."

"Like a long-range enforcer?" She asked hesitantly, somewhat liking the image of herself as the masked archer. Kind of like a robin-hood, only atoning for her own troubled past.

"Something like that," Dick agreed with a small smile.

Trying to remain serious and not be whisked away by the romance of it all, she said, "And you're sure my record will be clean? None of this will trace back to my family?"

"No strings attached," he confirmed. "And there's a nice pay-day with every mission you run in-school."

"There's an out of school?"

"Only if you graduate from Robin into the real-world stuff," Dick said seriously. "This is just kiddie stuff. A training ground for the real-deal. Once you get out there in the real world…it's not for fun anymore."

"I know a thing or two about not living for fun," Artemis assured him, a dark tinged to her voice.

"That's part of the reason we want you," Dick said and for a small moment, all three of the people in the room seemed to agree that she somehow belonged here in their circle of…_hackers for justice._

"Well, I don't see the harm in trying my hand at this justice thing," she agreed hesitantly.

No sooner had the words left her mouth than Wally was at her side, squeezing her body tightly to his own like an overexcited child at Christmas.

"Ach –Wally West, put me down!" She demanded as he went so far as to hoist her in the air, bridal style.

She wasn't accustomed to clinging _to_ a guy as opposed to trying to fight one off, but that was what she found herself doing, as he cradled her body gently in his arms.

"I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't, but I can't help it, I'm just so _happy,_" he babbled, and she wanted to be mad at him for crossing her boundaries, she did, but how could you be when he was just so adorably happy?

Just for her? No one had ever been that excited about her before.

"This is gonna be so great," he continued, seeming oblivious to Dick's presence completely, despite how uncomfortably aware Artemis was, "me and you, Arty. Fighting crime together!"

She blushed, balancing her hands around his neck as casually as she could.

"Uh, yah, Wally. I guess…that could be fun?" She tried as enthusiastically as she could, mostly just wondering how long he could hold her up like this without dropping her.

It wouldn't be put to the test, because Wally finally seemed to remember her issues with PDA, and set her down gently on the ground.

"Sorry," he said again, scratching his red hair sheepishly, but the permanent grin on his face didn't make him look very sorry at all.

It was like he was too thrilled to feel bad.

And she had to admit, there wasn't really anything bad about that at all.

"So, I've agreed. Now where's this super-secret blackmail you promised me?" Artemis asked, turning to Dick as she tried to regain her toughness after that particularly sappy moment.

Dick was grinning as though to say, _you wish_, but he said nothing, simply turning back to his computer with a second USB stick.

"I wouldn't call this blackmail exactly, but I still think you'll approve…" he said trailing off as he pressed enter on the keyboard.

A video popped up and she leaned forward, watching the animation cross the screen. Ten seconds in, she was grinning. By the time it finished, she was fully satisfied.

"Oh that. That is perfect. Yes, that will do just fine."

**A/N: Uh-oh! What is this evil plan…? I'd love to hear all your guesses! See you again next week ;D**


	6. Wildcat

**A/N: I was sick! I started a new semester of school! My internet has been down for several days! My dog ate my computer! Okay, so I have a lot of excuse for why this chapter is late but that's not the most important thing I have to say –the most important is a huge THANK YOU for all the really awesome support I've gotten for this story and really interesting guesses you guys gave for what this 'blackmail' of Artemis' was going to be. No promises to whether or not the answer is in this chapter –you'll have to read and find out ;)**

**Disclaimer: Young Justice is not mine, but if it was, Bluepulse would be exactly as canon as it already is (IMO).**

Artemis walked into class, glancing confidently around the half full room. There was only a minute until the start bell of third block, but that was plenty of time for what she had in mind.

Glancing at the teacher's desk, she was happy to see Mr. Harper already seated and looking over his lecture notes.

Walking up to his front desk, she put her hands down firmly on the desk surface, staring at him with confident, predatory grace.

"Good morning, _Roy,_" she said mockingly.

He looked up at her with a raised eyebrow, glancing from her firmly placed hands to her cocky expression.

"Can I…help you, Ms. Crock?" He asked, gently tugging his lecture notes out from beneath her hands.

"I like cats," she said and his expression became almost comical with confusion.

"What are you"-

"Cats are kind of a big thing in my family. Wild cats especially. The cats in my family aren't really the _domestic_ type, you know what I mean? I didn't really take you for the type to like cats at all, to be honest, but then I found out that apparently you are a cat guy. That's fine, it's just, I take you as the kind of man to like domestic cats. And like I said, that's not really the way things are in my family. You following me?" She asked, laying the metaphor on thickly.

It would be difficult for him not to follow where she was going with this, especially after his slip up in nearly calling her by her sister's name last week.

"I think I follow," he said quietly, folding his hands in his lap. His entire body seemed tense, his expression wary. "I understand that you might be upset about my relationship with your…_wild cat._ But you should know, my goal is not to domesticate her. I don't have a goal. She found me. And I'll enjoy her for however long she chooses to stay with me."

"Do I look upset?" Artemis asked with a wide smile, and Roy frowned at her disapprovingly. "I just wanted to warn you, is all. A friendly point from one cat-lover to another. The wild ones can get a bit vicious. You should be careful."

"Sometimes even the most feral of creatures are just afraid of affection, Artemis. But I wouldn't worry on my…or her…behalf. I understand the gravity of this situation, maybe even more than you do. I know better than to be careless," he said, and she bristled at the use of her name.

It didn't necessarily mean anything; he was her teacher after all, so her first name was on the attendance sheet. Sure, teachers at this school usually called their snotty, upper class students by their fancy last names, but…

Oh who was she kidding, it did mean something.

She could deny it all she wanted, but he was making his point loud and clear. It was obvious that either Jade was talking or Roy had done his background checks. Either way, it hinted at something more than a fling, which was clearly what he was trying to imply.

"Well, I appreciate your desire to be _careful._ But over time, sometimes people lose their edge. They get attached. And then people get hurt. I don't want anyone to get hurt, but…sometimes it just can't be avoided. Am I clear?" She asked lightly, pulling the USB Dick had provided her with from her pocket and sliding it across the desk to him.

Glancing around the room carefully, he picked it up and pocketed it discretely.

"Of course I understand. I just wish…well, let's just say I hope it doesn't come to that and leave it at that. Deal?" He offered half-heartedly.

She glanced him up and down dismissively, like making a deal with him would be beneath her.

"We'll see," was all she said, and then walked away, ignoring the strange looks on the other student's faces, and the obvious curiosity following her whispered conversation with the teacher.

Setting her sights on Wally, who appeared fully engrossed in the book he was reading, she walked up to him, coming to a stop just behind his shoulder.

Leaning down a little to look at the novel in his hands, she whispered playfully in his ear, "Is it a good book?"

"I have no idea, I've been reading the same sentence for the last five minutes. There was this total babe at the front of the room, and I couldn't stop thinking about her," he whispered back, still staring in a seemingly absorbed fashion at his book.

"So I did alright?" She asked nervously, and he finally glanced over his shoulder at her with a grin.

"You were amazing. That was totally hot. I was almost jealous you weren't blackmailing me," he assured her and she laughed quietly at his sweet affirmation.

"Well if you're really jealous…" she breathed seductively in his ear. She slid two fingers along his arm, enjoying the way goose-bumps erupted in their wake across his pale skin. "I'm pretty sure that ice cream we got the other day didn't use up all the money I spent on your…_services_. I guess that means you're going to have to take me on a second date."

"Really?" He squeaked, flushing with excitement at her suggestive tone, as she pressed even closer to him.

"I guess that's up to you, isn't it?" She replied, leaning in closer to kiss his cheek warmly before pulling away completely.

He nearly pulled a muscle spinning to face her eagerly as she walked away calmly, like she hadn't just kind-of-sort-of asked him out.

He pressed a hand to his cheek, and started at her retreating form, heart all but bleeding out of his eyes.

"Definitely," he whispered to himself, feeling something akin to both victory and a new beginning fluttering within his chest.

**A/N: So, some cute spitfire fluff at the end…hopefully that makes up for not revealing what the blackmail is yet? Keep guessing guys, I really love it! It's so entertaining and brings a smile to my face every time! ;D**


	7. Never Let Me Go

**A/N: Hey all! Back with a new chapter. Hopefully no one is too upset by the lack of Spitfire in this…but I just HAD to focus in on one of my other favorite couples, and there were a couple reviews requesting this ;) Full credit for this chapter goes to the beautiful song "Never Let Me Go" by Florence and the Machine. I mean really…wow, just haunting and gorgeous, it gives me feels for this particular pairing every time. Now without further ado, read on!**

**Disclaimer: Young Justice is not mine and sadly now it looks like its not going to be anything but ancient history…but I'll always treasure what little we did get of this amazing show!**

Roy let himself slump down on the sofa with a sigh, rubbing his temples with frustration.

Like teaching high school wasn't stressful enough on a normal day, Artemis just had to confront him like that at the beginning of third block.

"Awe, have us Crock women completely tired you out?" Jade's voice purred in his ear as she slid around behind him to massage his shoulders deeply.

It was one of the most affectionate gestures she ever gave, and she knew he loved it when she did.

Groaning slightly, he leaned back into his lovers arms, letting her catch him gently.

"You have. You'll be the end of me, I'm sure. You two aren't even on speaking terms, and she's already threatening to blackmail me on your behalf," he bemoaned, waving the USB stick she'd given him vaguely in the air.

"Just imagine what will happen when she really finds out what's going on," Jade mused, running a hand through her wild black mane.

She enjoyed torturing her poor man far too much, Roy decided.

"Don't remind me," he grouched, grabbing her hand absentmindedly, tugging her around so that she could come curl her lithe body up next to him, her simple, warm presence a comfort in itself.

There was a time when she could hardly stand to be in the same room as him, much less would agree to share a bed with him. And this…

"Does she really need to know? I mean, so soon? Couldn't we just, I don't know, wait until things are less crazy?" He pleaded, feeling guilty as Jade shot him a sharp eyed glare with her dark, haunted eyes.

"You know I can't do that. She's family. She deserves to know about this new…addition, to her family," she said, rubbing her abdomen like it would help her feel closer to the invisible person growing beneath her skin.

There was still no sign of the pregnancy, but they both knew. It weighed on their mind like an anchor, but also as a liberator.

The moment Jade had found out, had told him…they both knew. It was going to be impossible, too difficult, too messy…but they were going to do it anyways.

Because to hell with easy or conventional. This was their child. Their own beautiful creation.

No matter how broken the lives they themselves had led, they had still created this new life together, and neither could bear to let go of that and move on with their casual, romantic lives like it had never happened.

They may not have much to offer this child, but they could offer him or her a loving aunt, and it would be wrong to take that from them.

Artemis would have to find out…eventually. Roy just wasn't looking forward to that eventually.

While he could hardly remember a time when his and Jade's relationship was just about casual, convenient (awesome) sex, he could remember a better, more recent time of a carefree, loving relationship (and sex).

Sure, Jade was never really the sort to stay the night, and during the day he had to wonder what exactly she was doing (not that he really _wanted_ to know) but it was still a good relationship for both of them.

They were two broken pieces that somehow fit together perfectly. They understood each other's needs. And now they had this new need that they were sharing. And somehow they would just have to make that fit into their arrangement perfectly as well.

Maybe Jade would have to get used to actually staying put in one place for, say, an entire night. Maybe Roy would have to give a little more thought to what exactly her 'day job' was. But they'd still make it work.

Because _they were having a baby._ A beautiful, perfect baby, that was one hundred percent there's and nobody was going to take that from them.

"You're thinking about her again," Jade commented in an amused tone, tapping the back of his hand. He startled, glancing down at his hand that seemed to have moved of its own accord to rest on Jade's stomach.

There really was no sign of the baby yet on her fit, fine features, but he still felt that tiniest bit closer when he touched his child's mother.

His Jade. His lover. And did he ever love her.

From the moment she had first seduced him, he knew he was a lost cause when it came to her…affections. There was just something about her fierce passion that forced him to give in every time she came knocking, no matter how much he knew he shouldn't.

Even when people began to notice, began to question…there was no way he could leave her. And as long as she was satisfied to grace him with her presence, no matter when, no matter for how long, he would accept her and love her even if it really did kill him.

"You always refer to it as a she," Roy criticized, and Jade rolled her eyes, used to Roy's anal ways. He was always so nit-picky and determined to do things however he saw fit, even if that meant going it alone. In some ways that was what made her fall for him in the first place.

"Well, I prefer she to it," Jade chastised him, just like she always did, leaning her head upon his shoulder gently, placing a kiss there to mark her presence.

"What are we doing, Jade?" Roy asked with a sigh, leaning forward to cradle his head with a disheartened sigh.

"Our best," was her only answer, and somehow that gave him the strength to sit up again, looking affectionately at his lover's face.

"That's true. We are. And if your family doesn't approve…well, I doubt mine will either, so what's the point of trying to please them all? As long as you're happy and…_she's_ happy, I'll be satisfied," he said with another, happier sigh.

It was these small things, the concessions to the way Jade did things as opposed to the way he thought they should be done, that truly spoke of how much he loved her.

"I think Artemis would approve more if we were married," she said casually, and Roy nearly choked in shock at her brazen words.

Jade never was one for preamble, but even for her, that was starkly sudden. Glancing at her, he realized that it was because she was nervous.

She didn't know a kinder way to say it. She didn't know how to say it at all. The only experience she had with marriage was her parent's marriage, and that hadn't exactly set a shining example.

"She's the old fashioned type, huh? No wonder Wally likes her," Roy mused, thinking about the strange scene he'd witnessed this morning.

Aside from his personal fear over her negative reaction to his relationship with Jade, he couldn't help but notice her exchange with his younger friend, and student.

Wally certainly hadn't seemed to mind her attentions, to say the least.

"She wouldn't admit it, but she is. She wants to believe in fairy-tale endings," Jade agreed, lacing their fingers together comfortably.

"You know, she might get her own if she stays with that kid. He's a good guy. He's pretty into justice himself," Roy commented, appraising his lover's uncomfortable expression.

It was like the very word _justice_ pained her.

"You redheads and your justice…I suppose it was inevitable that Artemis would make a place for herself in this new life. I just didn't expect it to happen so fast. She's just a little baby to me still…I still want to protect her," Jade admitted, wrapping her arms around her stomach as though to accent her protectiveness.

Roy couldn't help a small smile, adding his own arms around her midsection. With both of them together this would be the happiest, healthiest, safest baby in the history of babies.

Especially with a mother as fierce and protective as Jade.

"Well I think Artemis feels she needs to protect you as well. She didn't give me this for no reason, after all," Roy said, once again toying with the mysterious USB Artemis had slid to him not-so-discreetly in class earlier.

"What's on that, anyways?" Jade questioned, seeming curious as she reached out to snatch it, though he held it easily out of her reach.

"I don't know," he responded with a shrug. "I assumed Wally got it to her through Dick. He seems so smitten with her, I doubt he'd think twice about giving her anything she asked for. And he did see us together that one time," Roy added, remembering the embarrassing scene that Dick and Wally had managed to drop in on several months prior.

Sometimes he had to remind himself exactly how long ago his relationship with Jade had started.

Sometimes it felt like it had never started at all, but had simply always been there, smoldering on the back burner in a mix of lust and confusing romantic infatuation that eventually lead to a much stronger brew of love.

"Oh, I remember that. They looked so shocked to see you actually having fun for once," Jade said, poking fun at Roy's serious nature, and he poked her back playfully, enjoying the way her body shook with silent laughter.

If even one of her enemies knew how ticklish she was, surely it would be the end of her.

"Please. More like they were shocked to see such a beautiful girl with a workaholic like me. How did I ever get you, anyways?" Roy questioned, pushing her down on the couch easily with one hand. She always let him, even though they both knew she could resist him with ease.

"You didn't get me, I got you. I was bored. I needed to have some fun, and I knew a stick in the mud like you was never going to give in, no matter how much I teased you. So I took matters into my own hands," she said in her most innocent voice, which, with Jade, really was about as suggestive as could be.

She didn't really have an 'innocent' setting. Or so he'd discovered on the occasions where he attempted to treat her to a normal dinner date. They never seemed to end as quietly and innocently as he had intended in the beginning.

They both enjoyed pretending to be normal sometimes, though. If only so they could remember why they loved being not-so-normal when the night was over.

"And then you were bored at least once a week for the next…oh, I don't know…year or so?" Roy questioned and Jade rolled her eyes before leaning forward to kiss him.

She never really said 'why' she had stuck with him for so long. She always just responded with a gesture like this, a passionate kiss that said how much she enjoyed his presence in particular.

He had decided long ago that he didn't need an explanation for their relationship, nor did he need the sort of woman that would be predictable in her presence or actions.

If she stayed because he was good in bed, or because he understood her need to be free, or because he never was one to complain about her habit of disappearing in the middle of the night –it didn't matter why.

He preferred to live in the moment of having her and endure the moments of not having her.

And at least with their child on the way, he knew he would always have a piece of her no matter where she roamed.

"Mm…maybe we should see what my sister has to say before we take this any farther?" Jade suggested, though the way she slid her hands down his body did little to persuade him.

With a sigh, he sat up, knowing that despite her contradictory actions, she must really be missing Artemis.

He knew that of what family member's Jade had left, she thought most highly of her little sister.

She was fiercely protective, despite their lack of communication, and had done everything in her power to stop Artemis from attending Gotham Academy in the first place –it had been difficult for her when Artemis decided to anyways.

That was the first time Roy saw Jade truly struggle with something morally. She obviously wanted to protect her relationship with Roy but also wanted what was best for Artemis.

To this day, Roy was still quietly unconvinced that Jade had actually tried her hardest to stop Artemis from attending Gotham Academy or incidentally meeting 'Mr. Harper'.

He still believed that some small part of Jade had wanted Artemis to get as good an education as possible, and access to as much happiness as possible, even if it jeopardized her own.

"If you insist," he conceded, kissing her full lips one last time for reassurance before inserting the USB into the computer. A video popped up, and he pressed play, curiosity stirring within him.

A cute little diddle began to play and he immediately felt his heart drop. He knew that song. Dick had written it as a joke when they were first learning to hack. He had labelled it their 'theme song'.

Little cartoon figures began to march across the screen in time with the music. A redheaded boy in a Flash t-shirt, a girl with green skin, a brawny looking boy in a superman t-shirt, a dark skinned guy with blond hair…all of them were wearing hipster glasses that glinted maliciously in the high-definition animation sequence.

The final person to cross the screen was a dark haired boy with a black cape that resembled bat wings. He also wore the glasses, but they were tinted to hide his eyes.

A speech bubble appeared above him reading, "Robin would like to wish a warm welcome to our newest member. She's something of a wildcat, so we just wanted all our old members to be aware –she's very good at seeking justice."

A new animated figure traipsed onto the screen, wearing a tiger costume that accented her intense, grey eyes and long, blond hair.

There was no mistaking the avatar for anyone but Artemis, especially when her speech bubble appeared, reading, "You better watch your back, Red. I've got some new friends. And they know how to look out for their own."

All the little avatars began cheering as a banner descended from the top of screen that said, "Welcome to the team, Tigress!"

With another round of that same, all-too-familiar music, the animation came to a close. Roy stared at the blank screen, feeling two parts amused and two parts weary of all these antics.

"And here I thought you _were_ one of their own," Jade purred, sounding wholly amused by the animated approach to 'warning' both Roy and Jade of stepping out of line.

If they only knew how many lines they'd already crossed…

"I used to be. Feels like so long ago…First to graduate Robin, but also the first to strike out on my own," Roy said with a sigh, remembering with a mix of nostalgia and bitterness his brief time as a member of Robin.

That was five years ago. Before he decided that he disagreed with their policies and became –

"My ex-Robin vigilante. How the heroes do fall," Jade said, kissing his neck gleefully as though to say how she approved of his lack of 'heroism'.

"You know I didn't fall. I just didn't want to be a hero under their terms. They see things too black and white," Roy protested, though her sultry laugh mocked his surety in leaving his former 'teammates'.

"You always do think you know best. And maybe you do," she added quickly when he began to protest again. "But I don't think they've ever fully forgiven you for leaving them."

"No. We may still be on good terms professionally, but…it's like they can't accept that I went my own way instead of the way we were 'supposed' to. It makes me worry for these kids, like Wally. He's so set in his view of justice…I wonder what will happen to him when he sees what the program is like when you become more than just someone's protégé?" Roy wondered, concern for his young friend coloring his voice.

Wally wasn't the sort to be a vigilante, nor to leave the path of 'justice' completely. He would hate to see his enthusiastic friend torn apart or darkened by the reality of the world around him.

"You can't keep them all safe, Roy," Jade breathed, in the most comforting way she could.

She didn't know much about being concerned about more than herself and her family, but she tried for his sake not to dismiss his fear for his 'little friends'.

"I know…I know," he said sadly, shaking his head, trying not to be swept away by the angst of the situation.

If he let himself get bogged down, he'd find himself back in that negative place that Jade had first found him in. It was ironic, given her dark ties to that other life, that she still represented a redeeming light in his life.

"Maybe they'll learn to forgive you, now that Artemis has joined them," Jade mused, curling herself up in his lap, truly like an affectionate cat.

He found it strange how her codename, Cheshire, reflected her nature so well.

"It's not that Artemis herself is terribly forgiving," Jade continued, "but she cares too much about family to hate her niece…or her brother-in-law."

Roy swallowed slightly. There was that hinting again. Jade's not-so-subtle way of saying exactly what it was she wanted.

"Do you really think it would make a difference? I mean to her. I know you're not really the…type…to settle like that," Roy said awkwardly, glancing at her with piercing blue eyes.

She stared back, contemplating and silent for a moment.

"I'm not. But for her," she touched her stomach, "to give her the best chance possible…I think I could be that person. At least for a while. Or maybe for longer. I don't know," her voice wavered, ever so slightly, showing for just one brief second the uncertainty behind her confidence.

Jade would never admit it, but she did worry sometimes about what sort of mother she would be for their child. No matter how she tried, she _wasn't_ the settling type, and she certainly wasn't a hero.

"I know I said I'd never try and change you. But I wouldn't be terribly opposed if you were to be that type of person…just for a while," he admitted quietly, feeling emotion surge within him.

He truly had never wanted, never _dared_ to want such commitment from her, not even in the face of having a child, but…he buried his face in her wild black hair, trying to hide his emotions.

"Why, Red," she said in surprise, pulling back slightly from his embrace, though he refused to show his face, "if I didn't know you better, I'd say you _wanted_ to marry me. And here I was thinking I was being selfish." She said it jokingly, but there was a note of relief in her voice.

He looked up slowly, afraid to show the emotion on his face, afraid to scare her off, yet he couldn't stop himself from saying, "You know there's nothing I want more than to have you for as long as possible, Jade. How could I ever want anything but to marry you?"

She looked away, unable to respond to his sentimental words. Instead, she stood up and darted out of the room, leaving him alone on the ratty sofa with clenched fists and a hollow spot within him.

He didn't want to change her, he truly didn't. But that didn't mean he wouldn't like, just once, to hear her say out loud the way they both knew she felt.

He could hear her voice from the kitchen, talking quickly and quietly on the phone. Maybe with one of her associates. Unlike Robin, her associates weren't so on the level, though.

The thought made him sigh and go back to rubbing his temples.

Not five minutes later, her near silent footsteps came padding back into the living room. He looked up wearily, seeing her standing there, a determined expression on her face, the cordless phone in her hand.

"Is today at three okay with you?" She asked, and he stared at her incomprehensively for a long moment.

"Okay for what?" He finally asked in confusion.

It wasn't like she asked him for permission to take jobs or go out. He knew he would never have that sort of control of her, nor would he ever want to.

"For city hall. You know, I've heard that other women are annoyed when men forget their anniversaries, but this is a little extreme," she said jokingly, and he felt his stomach drop to his toes at what she was implying.

"You…You mean…today? Us? At City Hall? At three? I mean, yes, yes, that's fine, that's…good. That's perfect, Jade," he stumbled to say, standing up and crossing to her side in a heartbeat.

She grinned up at him slyly before turning back to her phone call.

"Yes, three will work fine…I don't see that it matters…how long have we been engaged? Well, about five minutes, I think…Yes, we've thought about this…That's not really any of your concern anyhow…Yes, we'll be able to do the paperwork as soon as we get there." She hung up unceremoniously, an annoyed expression on her face.

"What's wrong?" Roy asked, cupping her face gently in his palms.

"You'd just think they'd understand last minute arrangements," she said peevishly and he laughed, delighted in her un-romantic approach to life.

It was just so _Jade_ to not understand why anyone would find it strange getting married five minutes after proposing.

Grabbing her, he pulled her close, nearly swallowing her tiny body in his strong arms. She was going to be his. Maybe not forever, but still…he could finally call her his. And how could he truly want anything but that?

She was stiff in his embrace for a moment, before melting into his arms in an unusual display of affection.

She was, if possible, the more physical of the two, but it usually manifested in a sexual way, unlike Roy, who would be happy to simply hold her for hours on end.

That's not to say he didn't enjoy the sex. That was the way their 'arrangement' had started, and he certainly had done nothing to dissuade her from seducing him then, nor would he now.

She mumbled something against his chest, and he pulled back slightly so he wasn't muffling her voice completely.

Strangely, it was easier to let her go now. There had always been a sense of unknowing with Jade. He never knew if or when she would return.

Now it was like there was a line drawn between them, a bond that could be stretched thin, but would always bring her back to him. _They were going to get married._

"Never let us go, Roy," she whispered, burying her face back against him, afraid to look at him when she said it. "Or at least her. Please, don't ever let her go."

"I would never forgive myself if I lost either of you, Jade. I will never let you go," he responded with a surety to his voice that surprised even himself.

He loved her. He loved their daughter. They were his…family. And no matter how Artemis or Robin or Oliver or anyone else reacted to that, it didn't matter. They were his, and he would never, ever let them go.

**A/N: D'awww…gosh that was so fluffy…I hope it wasn't too OOC because I just really love their relationship in all its twisted but beautiful glory! And I just HAD to throw Lian in there…in one form or another ;) I hope you all enjoyed the new chapter, please let me know, and thank you once again for your very entertaining guesses at to what the blackmail was, I hope the results satisfied!**


	8. Retirement Party

**A/N: Ahoy my lovely followers! Oh dear, I have some sad news. This is, in fact, the last chapter. I wish I had given you more warning but I completely forgot last chapter…regardless, I hope you've enjoyed this story and I hope this last chapter does the story justice! (See what I did there? Because it's a story about YOUNG justice?)**

**Disclaimer: Young Justice is not mine (they won't even let you buy the episodes in Canada so I can't even support the show…)**

**TIME SKIP**

"I'm going to kill Jade. How does she always manage to forget her anniversary until the last minute every year," Artemis grumbled, winding her arms around the redhead's beside her.

"In her defense, there isn't much to remember. Roy's the one who makes a big deal about it every year," Wally reminded her, knowing it would make Artemis feel better to blame Roy for this cold, late night walk over to the school.

"Yah well, Roy is damn lucky I like Lian better than him. God, I am freezing my ass off, and I'm going to be late to my own retirement party, how sad is that?" She complained bitterly, as they came to a stop at a red light. Roy was also lucky that he lived so close to Gotham Academy.

"She is a great kid," Wally agreed affectionately.

While Jade's freewheeling behavior still bothered him more than it did Artemis or Roy, he clearly had a huge soft spot for her baby girl. Lian was as much as niece to him as she was to Artemis.

"And don't worry babe," he added, leaning in to peck Artemis on her cold cheek, "I'm sure we'll find a way to warm you up once we get home."

She raised an eyebrow at his telling grin and said, "I hope you mean with a bottle of wine because that's all I'm going to be in the mood for after this party. I don't know why Miss M thought it was a good idea."

"You know Megan, she's always been into these celebratory events," Wally said offhandedly, though if he was forced to admit it he would say he wasn't super excited for this 'retirement party' either.

Ever since the messy departure of Kaldur, and the falling out with the League…well, Robin just hadn't been the same.

For one, Dick had taken over there and employed Megan and Connor to help him make sure they never had a repeat incident.

For another, the program had become a lot more serious and even more heavily policed than it had been when Artemis started there.

"I know what you're thinking about," Wally whispered in her ear, his hot breath making her jump, "And yes, it's okay to change your mind about letting me warm you up later."

"Wally! You know that's not what I was thinking about," she snapped, batting at him half-heartedly.

"I know, but it should be. You shouldn't be thinking anything but positive thoughts tonight. It's a party in our honor. Being a hero is kind of a big deal, and retiring is something to be happy about. So no more long faces, okay?" He said hip checking her gently.

She staggered to the side, letting out a sigh in the form of a white cloud that disappeared into the cold night air.

"I know, I know. It's just ironic that it took me turning down the League and Robin for them all to realize I was never going to be the hero they wanted me to be," she confessed with another heavy sigh.

Dodging in front of her and spinning about so he could face his girl while walking backwards, Wally grabbed her and pulled her in for a quick kiss, smiling against her lips briefly before pulling away.

His hipster frames bumped against her forehead when he did. He'd insisted on attending the event in his old 'uniform'.

"Wally, we're in public," she complained, but she couldn't hide the smile tugging at her lips when he looked so happy.

Laughing quietly at her attempt to be firm, he tucked her under his arm securely, setting a brisk pace moving forward again.

She had decided pretty quickly that she did, indeed, like the feeling of being secure.

"Oh, Arty you never change. Always trying to atone for something you didn't do. Don't you realize by now? We all love you. You're one of the all-stars of the heroes Robin has produced as far as I'm concerned. And not a single person that knows you would ever blame you for wanting to keep your head down and keep the people you care about safe," he assured her, squeezing her tightly to his side.

"You don't think it's selfish? There's no guarantee that Kaldur would ever come in contact with my father, much less sell out my location to him," Artemis mused, feeling Wally wince slightly at the mention of their fallen friend. His betrayal had hit Wally hard.

"And to force you to give up the thing you love the most on a chance, too…" Artemis added, the gnawing worry within her only mounting as they drew closer to the school where all their old Robin associates were waiting.

"Don't be silly babe, you aren't making me give up what I love most," Wally assured her in his most carefree tone. "Sure, Robin always mattered a lot to me, and I once dreamed of joining the League, but I think we both know that's not where my life was going anyways. Plus, how could retiring from Robin take what I love most from me when I'm retiring to be with the thing I love most in the world?" He asked cheerfully, and she blushed at his romantic implications.

"I love you too, Wally," she said quietly, but she knew he heard by the way he leaned down to kiss the top of her blond head tenderly.

She felt warmth blossom within her when she thought about how lucky she was to have this crazy kid all to herself.

He called her an all-star hero, but she quietly knew that wasn't true. She had been a fine hero while it lasted, but she had never been brilliant like him.

She became a hero to atone for the sins of her past. He was a hero because he was only interested in helping others and doing what was right.

Sure he did it in his own dorky, immature way, but that was what she loved best about him.

"You know, maybe I will take you up on that offer, Wally," she mused shooting him a sly smile.

"What offer?" He asked, clueless as ever.

"Well, if you don't remember…" she trailed off regretfully.

"Wait, no! I remember, I do! You know I am always down for warming you up, babe," he pleaded eagerly, bounding after her like an excited puppy.

"I don't know…this party is really going to wear me out…" she said, trying to sound serious, though his heartbroken expression was just too adorable not to laugh at.

"Come on, babe!"

They set off into the night together, laughing and teasing and happier than she had ever imagined she could be.

It was true, they had to make sacrifices along the way and nothing was ever perfect (unlike Roy, he couldn't remember important dates for the life of him) but it was so much better than anything Artemis had ever believed she could deserve.

He was the most perfect thing to ever happen to her, and he was right. As long as they had each other, they would always be just fine.

**A/N: Just a little bit of fluff to end out the story! I hope you guys enjoyed it, I've really enjoyed getting your ongoing support throughout. Even though the ending came a bit abruptly, I definitely hope to write another Spitfire/RedCat fic soon! They're just too amazing of a couple to end it here…and I've loved writing for you guys, so hopefully you'll be able to tune in soon for my third go at it :D For now, adios and I'll see you in the review section!**


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